Second IRS staffer pleads the Fifth

A second IRS employee summoned to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee invoked the Fifth Amendment on Wednesday and refused to answer questions — a flashback to Lois Lerner, who did the same during a hearing on the agency’s scandal last month.

Gregory Roseman, who worked as a deputy director of acquisitions at the IRS, exercised his constitutional rights when Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) started interrogating him about panel findings that he helped a friend procure potentially $500 million worth of IRS contracts.

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“On the advice of the counsel, I respectfully decline to answer any questions and invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege to remain silent,” Roseman said when Issa asked to whom he reported at the IRS.

But unlike Lerner, who triggered the IRS scandal by acknowledging the agency wrongly targeted tea party groups applying for a tax exemption, Roseman didn’t offer any type of statement before invoking his constitutional rights.

The exchange differed from Lerner’s interaction with the committee. Before she took the Fifth, the former head of the IRS tax exempt division that oversaw the targeting of conservative groups told Issa’s panel on May 22 that she didn’t do anything wrong.

That triggered debate about whether she waived her rights.

The panel will vote Friday on whether they think Lerner, now suspended from her IRS duties, waived her constitutional protections. Before the vote takes place, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, wants the committee to be allowed to consult more legal experts.

“I am writing to request that you first take the preliminary, common-sense step of holding a hearing with legal experts before requiring members of the committee to vote on this very significant constitutional question,” Cummings wrote Wednesday in a letter to Issa. “It would be helpful for committee members to hear directly from the House counsel and pose any questions they have about the legal standards and historical precedents he believes are controlling.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, Issa seemed to accept Roseman’s invocation of his constitutional rights, but Roseman still hiccupped.

Before the panel took testimony from witnesses, Issa said he “does not want to have anyone waiving their right accidentally, involuntarily or in any other way” and asked the panel if anyone wanted to invoke the Fifth.

Roseman piped up, but seemed to flub his words: “Sir, I do intend to waive mine — I, I intend to invoke my Fifth Amendment right.”